Why do British royal children not go to state schools like the Scandanavian royals?

Well I've already proved myself to be Ms Unpopular today regarding leaving one's house to one's children, so, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

A good education is everyone's right, whether daddy is going to be King or whether daddy is a care worker or a bin man. The existence of a parallel, private education system is a disgrace. The idea that money can buy you a better education, or oboe lessons, or an "in" to the network of privately educated contacts that will see you all right through life, is just beyond the pale.

In the next town to mine, there are 2 schools. The private one for people with means and the state one for the leftovers. The state one is literally falling down, because people want to send their children to the private one, with its nice gardens and lacrosse pitch.

Perhaps anyone getting the best for their children is disregarding the fact that everybody deserves the best, irrespective of whether you are rich or not. Just call me a loony leftie, if you like. Or a Scot, because generally we value education and the creation of a lad or lass o'pairts, whether they are royalty or off a council estate. (4% privately educated in Scotland, unlike the 7% across the whole of the UK.)

And yes, I'd close them down. Or at the very least stop them from pretending to be charities.

Oops, forgot something.

I an astounded that any child going to state school might be accused of depriving another of a place. Where on earth does that come from?

Life’s a bitch though volver. According to the Times, the dictatorships of Cuba and North Korea are among a tiny group of countries with no private schools. Finland outlawed fee-paying 45 years ago and soared to the top of world rankings. Finland is widely cited as the model for a successful education system that “prohibits” private primary and secondary education. I don’t think the UK will be going down that road at any point soon. Maybe an independent Scotland would though?

If anyone else had written that Casdon I'd accuse them of telling me to move to North Korea ? But I know that's not your Modus Operandi.

(My Latin, learnt in a state school in the soon-to-be-republic of Scotland )

Interesting about Finland.

volver if your local state school is falling down I suggest you complain to Ms. Sturgeon as education is devolved.

Whilst the U.K. has a choice of schools, Grammar, comprehensive, academy and private it’s down to parental choice. If they can afford school fees, I really don’t see why they cannot spend their money as they wish.

As for the Cambridge children, a prep school in Berkshire is preferable for their safety and privacy.

GrannyGravy13

volver if your local state school is falling down I suggest you complain to Ms. Sturgeon as education is devolved.

Whilst the U.K. has a choice of schools, Grammar, comprehensive, academy and private it’s down to parental choice. If they can afford school fees, I really don’t see why they cannot spend their money as they wish.

As for the Cambridge children, a prep school in Berkshire is preferable for their safety and privacy.

Sorry, GG13, Nicola is too busy picking up the litter in Edinburgh and driving the school buses in Lanarkshire today. Anyway, I think I'm right that in Scotland, school provision is the responsibility of the Local Authority. Our local one is a LibDem/Tory coalition.

I don't think anyone has to justify themselves for sending their child to the school of their choice because some schools are not what we would want. That seems as pointless to me as deciding not to feed your children because some are starving.

I do think the government - who are mandated to provide both good schools and the opportunity to earn enough to feed your family - do have to justify themselves.

The main advantages of the public school our sons went to were a boarding facility, a longer school day to incorporate sport each day and a great selection of extra curricular activities.

The school day in higher line was 8.20 am until 8/9 pm.
From 9-13 it was 8.20am until 7 pm.
School finished at 1pm on Saturday or later for sports teams.

The boys also took part in an enrichment program that involved them taking part in charity work, both boys worked with disabled young people.

It was a good holistic education.

Interestingly my husband went to public school in the 1970’s with a Prince from a South Pacific Island, he didn’t have a security detail but he did have a regular hamper delivery from Fortnums.

Interesting in Wales that Monmouth has the highest percentage of privately educated children 12% and 5 counties have no private schools at all. The average is around 3%.

Nothing wrong with being a left wing loony volver ? - what I can’t be stand is the left wing hypocritical loonies who send their own kids to private school on the grounds that they shouldn’t be made to suffer (a bog standard school) for their parents political beliefs!

Let’s not forget those lefties who buy homes within catchment areas of church run schools etc which are deemed more select...a family member did this in spite of professing strong socialist principles!

p.s. - we don't have academies in Scotland, at least not as you mean them. I don't think we have grammars or comprehensives either.

We just have "schools"

volver

If anyone else had written that Casdon I'd accuse them of telling me to move to North Korea ? But I know that's not your Modus Operandi.

(My Latin, learnt in a state school in the soon-to-be-republic of Scotland )

Interesting about Finland.

Of course not, I wouldn’t think the North Korean state education system has much to recommend to anybody volver, those poor little souls. It is interesting about Finland, they also don’t historically have a Royal Family, the only problem is they also have no daylight in the winter!

I do really understand why people - even left wing hypocritical loonies - feel they have to send their children to fee-paying schools because the education they would get elsewhere may not be up-to-scratch. But up-to-scratch education should be available to anybody who would benefit from it. And as long as we have the attitude in this country that money can buy you education, the state schools will never be good enough.

I agree with Volver completely, which doesnt always happen

? ?

Ah, so many things money can buy.

Private healthcare.
Private schooling.
Beautiful big houses in nicer areas.
Expensive cars.
A boat.
A second home.
Trips out to places of interest.
A cleaner.
A gardener.
Shopping at Waitrose instead of Lidl.
A gym membership.
A personal trainer.
Cruises.
Salon appointments.
Designer clothing.

Life isn’t equal or fair. We make choices if we are lucky and have some disposable income.

During the pandemic we were all hugely grateful for the supermarket workers, the shelf stackers and delivery drivers.

Even academics need a plumber.

Wealth. It never was & it never will be evenly distributed.

This topic was on r4 this morning across the lines or something it's called. They were as usual quoting the percentage of politicians, etc who receive a private education. The other thing that nagged me whilst listening is the impact this has on the quality of people in public life, it doesnt really seem to be working out well does it?

There is a significant difference between being able to buy yourself a nice haircut every week and being able to buy yourself unfair advantages in life via a private education.

True volver. The ‘old boy network’ still thrives I suspect.
Who you know rather than what you know.
Internships are another example. For the few and not the many.

It’s a very bumpy road for some, this life.
Brains or beauty unlock some doors.

Pity the poor sod who has neither and a family on their uppers.

Pantglas2

Interesting in Wales that Monmouth has the highest percentage of privately educated children 12% and 5 counties have no private schools at all. The average is around 3%.

Nothing wrong with being a left wing loony volver ? - what I can’t be stand is the left wing hypocritical loonies who send their own kids to private school on the grounds that they shouldn’t be made to suffer (a bog standard school) for their parents political beliefs!

Let’s not forget those lefties who buy homes within catchment areas of church run schools etc which are deemed more select...a family member did this in spite of professing strong socialist principles!

I repeat: I don't think anyone has to justify themselves for sending their child to the school of their choice because some schools are not what we would want. That seems as pointless to me as deciding not to feed your children because some are starving. I see nothing hypocritical in this.

I do think the government - who are mandated to provide both good schools and the opportunity to earn enough to feed your family - do have to justify themselves.

Should you put a government into power - perhaps by not tearing MPs apart - that will do what Finland did and ban fee-paying schools, then I am sure we will all be happy about the rise in standard. Sadly, we are not inclined to behave like the Fins, so you may have a long wait.

Thinking parents send their children to the best schools they can manage. I went to private schools because my parents thought they were the best local schools. My children went to state schools because they were better than the private schools in our area. My grandchildren are going to a mixture, again measured by the quality of the schools.

The difficulty is that although ideally all schools should be of equal quality, in reality at the moment they are not. It would be a mean parent who did not choose the best that they can afford.

It is fair enough to sacrifice yourself for a principle, but I don’t think it’s right to sacrifice your children.

Is it only left wing hypocritical MPs that shouldn’t be torn apart?

The Royals, right wingers are fair game?

Incidentally, there are private schools in Finland.

The left wing MP that we are talking about receives deeply misogynistic threats on a regular basis, so I am not sure she escapes anything.

Grandma70s

Incidentally, there are private schools in Finland.

I’ve googled a bit more, this is the position according to the BBC:

‘Schools not operated by the government or local authorities are permitted - and are referred to as "private schools"- but they are publicly funded and free to pupils, although some charge parents and guardians registration fees. And there are only 75 of them, making up just 2% of Finnish schools.’

So, they are run outside the public education system, but they aren’t elitist, because they are still funded by the state.

Casdon, what no one ever comments about in the Finish system is that, as a large country with a small and scattered population, all their schools are relatively small and community based and I frequently think that where a school is embedded in the community and all the teachers will know most of the children and the children will know almost every other pupil, it must contribute as much to high educational outcomes as banning private education.

DH and I were both state educated as are our grandchildren. We privately educated our children in the 1980s firstly, because DH's employer wanted to relocate DH to one of their overseas offices, and we wanted to keep our children in the English educational sytem. Secondly because all our son's teachers in his state primary school advised us to take him out of the state system and send him to a private school, because they feared that despite being very bright, and generally friendly and liked, he was quite quiet and as we now know is neuro diverse, having both dyspraxia and ADD, the danger was that in a large school, he would withdraw into himself and sink without trace.

We sent him to a small private school, where class sizes were similar to state school classes, and facilities were not outstandingly better, but the school only had two streams and the effect was like that I describe in the Finnish school system, the relative small size of the school meant that teachers and pupils all knew each other and the community feel was strong. When there were problems, and few children do not have problems at some time, those involved in dealing with it knew the child and their personality and solutions were very individually child sensitive. As a result pupils flourished.